


I-Sentences and the Art of Landing on Your Feet

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2015 [8]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Anger Management via I-Sentences, Community: wishlist_fic, Cracky, Dimension Jumping, Gen, Historical, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:14:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5432714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Buffy falls through a portal and ends up meeting a guy with a weird penchant for candy. In the dark ages. In a bar brawl. It's a shitty day, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I-Sentences and the Art of Landing on Your Feet

**Author's Note:**

> For _moonagegstardust_ who asked for Buffy/Gabriel, Buffy gets stranded in the SPN 'verse and discovers a dimension that sucks more than hers and worse yet, it's several centuries in the past. Gabriel takes a shine to her.
> 
> \- It's more pre- than relationship, but. They flirt?

+

Someone once taught Buffy that, when you’re being overly emotional, it’s good to start sentences with I. Might have been Willow, might have been Psych 101. These things blur. 

Still, I-sentences seem like a good idea right about now, because the alternative is senseless violence perpetrated on innocent bystanders, which is not of the good. 

“I am stuck in the past because I fell through a stupid-ass portal during a stupid-ass fight with stupid-ass baby slayers who can’t watch their step and need to be pushed out of the way.” She exhales. Maybe a bit on the aggressive side, but not too bad. 

Deep breath. “I hate being here. Because it sucks, there is no electricity and the briefing said the demon’s weird portals were untraceable.”

Better. Less swear-words. 

“I hate the fashion around here.” Even better. Except, looking down at the dreary brown on brown combo of ankle length skirt, bulky jacket and her own, twenty-first century boots, maybe not. She’s wearing one of those weird bed-hat things the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood always wears. It has frills. And it itches. 

“I hate having to steal stuff.” Because the clothes didn’t fall from the sky. She had to snag them off a laundry line and then run like hell for the next village over, because the only places she’s found around here are so small that any outsider, especially one wearing recently stolen clothing, sticks out like a sore thumb. 

“I must have been a serial killer in another life.”

Absolutely true. 

“I am hungry.”

She’s been here twenty-four hours. Landed right around dusk, spent the night trying to figure out what the hell happened, ended up in a freaking medieval hamlet, got a clue, spent a few hours hiding from the general populace because jeans and a crop top seems to be a good way to get burnt at the stake around here, stole some clothes, hooved it out of there. 

Villages in the sixteenth century are really. Far. Apart. 

“I would like a car.”

Dream on. 

“I have no money.”

She has a few silver earrings she could use to trade, but she’s pretty sure they’re way too valuable for food and a bed for the night. Better to save them, since this might be a long term thing. 

God, no. Don’t think about that. Suppress, suppress, suppress. Wills will find a way. Or Dawn will spontaneously figure out how her Keyness works and come to the rescue. Giles will have an idea. Something. Anything. 

Until then, food. Focus on the little things. On solvable problems. Buffy is good at pushing things aside and getting through, one crisis at a time. Food. 

She could bargain to work for food, but she only understands about a fourth of what comes out of people’s mouths here. She recognizes some landmarks, so she’s pretty sure she’s still in Scotland, only, you know, way earlier. How Diana Gabaldon of her. So the language should, by rights, be English. Except there was that whole thing with the Scottish not wanting to be English, so they might be speaking Gaelic? Only Buffy understands some parts, so probably not? Eugh, this is hard. 

In any case, language barrier. Bad. She’s pretty fast at picking up languages, but not fast enough to feed herself legally before she starves. So stealing it is. She’s going to get caught and have her ass thrown in prison, or something.

“I hate my life.”

No choice, though, she tells herself and tries to rouse her inner fifteen-year-old, who didn’t have a problem stealing cosmetics and candy and all kinds of crap for fun. She should be fine with using the five finger discount for actual necessities, unlike twenty-five-year-old Buffy. Personal growth is such a drag sometimes. 

Okay. Plan. Buffy has a plan. Buffy exhales. Buffy can do this. 

“I really, really hate my life.”

Shut up. 

Plan set, she makes her way down into the village she has been scoping out for hours. It has a broad, muddy road cutting straight through the middle, and she saw a few wagons and carriages going through, so they should be marginally used to strangers. Unlike Clothes Place, which consisted of five or six houses and a lot of cows. There’s even something approaching a business. Tavern. Something. In any case, people go in, it smells like stale beer, it’s loud. A crowd means a place to hide and a chance for nimble fingers to make some cash. 

If anyone tries to talk to her, she can just pretend she’s deaf mute. Has to be better than speaking in tongues. Thank you, Giles, for forcing all the useless historical crap down her throat for the past ten years. Still hated it, but it’s marginally useful now. She shudders at the idea of her high-school-self landing here. She’d be dead in a day, all brash and loud and so American. If the sinking of Sunnydale did one thing for her, it broadened her horizons. A lot. 

She slips into the tavern – yeah, she’ll go with that – and takes an immediate and sharp left to avoid a pair of drunks stumbling out the door. It seems like most of the village is here, which is awesome. Yay. Except these people have no concept of personal hygiene, damn them. They smell. But there’s also a few people who look like guards sitting in one corner. She saw them come in earlier with the only carriage that looked anything like the movies, so they probably work for some rich dude. They also carry bayonets.

Now, Buffy is no history crack, but she does know weapons. Instinctively. And she is slayer-y unable to forget a fact about a weapon once she’s learned it. It makes for a lot of useless facts, but it also tells her that her estimate was off at least a century. Seventeenth century or later, for there to be bayonets. So, yay, she only has four hundred years to go to get back home, instead of five hundred. Such a relief. 

Doesn’t really help her at all.

She finds a tiny, rickety table in the far corner, observes. It’s like stalking prey, only this time, she needs to figure out conventions so she doesn’t stick out quite so painfully. After about thirty minutes, just when people start looking at her funny, she thinks she has it about figured out. 

And then, conveniently, a drunk idiot stumbles into her and, whoops, a few coins lighter. Poor bastard. 

She makes her way to the crude counter and when the man behind it looks at her, she makes a show of cringing, being shy. His expression softens marginally. Not a lot, but the slayer knows how to spot a weakness. Buffy points to her ear, shakes her head. Mimes eating and drinking. Puts her coins down in front of him. 

He nods his understanding and swipes all three coins. Way more than food can possibly cost. Buffy mimes sleeping and he hesitates visibly. She puts on her brave-scared face, points at the coins. He grunts, rolls his eyes, points at the southern wall, where she knows the stables are. He has rooms upstairs. 

Still, meek, Buffy. Meek. She nods and he waves her off. There’s a barmaid making the rounds. She’ll bring Buffy her food, apparently. Probably. Or he might keep the coins for the ‘bed’ and forget all about the promised food. 

She needs to learn the language. And fast. 

The owner does not decide to shortchange her any more than he already has; the barmaid brings her a bowl of what is probably supposed to be stew but really, really isn’t, and beer. Ale? It’s gross and she’d rather have water, but she’s mute, so she can’t complain. The woman, heavy-set and weathered, but young under it, smiles as she sets the tray down. Female commiseration across four centuries. 

By the time she’s almost done eating, a hush suddenly falls over the crowd and for a moment. Buffy thinks it’s her. She’s done something, or they noticed something, like her boots, or her earrings, or the fact that she wears jeans under her stolen skirt. So her head shoots up and around, clocking dangers, but no-one’s even looking at her. 

No, they’re all looking at the guy in the doorway, who happens to be the first dab of color she’s seen since she landed here. Everyone else is brown, grey and beige wool, washed out and stained, but he’s bright red and gold, heavy brocade and Buffy might not know this century, but she knows a peacock when she sees one. 

This guy? Is definitely a peacock. 

He’s also glowing too brightly for her to look at him for longer than a second without her eyes watering. 

The guards, all standing at attention now, hastily make room for the guy at their table, pushing patrons out of the way for him. Obviously, he’s the one signing their paychecks. As it were. Do they have paychecks around here? Do they have paper, for that matter? Okay, no, stupid question. She’s sneezed over enough musty books to know the answer to that. 

As he makes his way across the room – good lord, those shoes have heels – with way too much swagger to be considered heterosexual in her day and age, his eyes scan the crowd. She can’t do more than blink tiny peeks at him because he is so _bright_ and her heart hurts, but she can see the shrewdness in his gaze. The cleverness. 

And she can see the way he stares at her twice as long as he did at anyone else and that probably means… something. 

What the hell – ha! – is he doing here?

She goes back to her shitty food and disgusting ale, if only so she won’t have to look at him any longer. If only so her eyes stop watering. From the light, nothing else. 

_I really, really hate my life_. She doesn’t say it out loud. Mute, remember. Just sticks her nose in her wooden cup and ignores the entire room full of loud, smelly people coming back to life around her. 

The peacock gets served, the barmaid simpers, the owner cracks a smile – goodness, don’t ever do that again, dental hygiene should be a thing by now, shouldn’t it? – and soon, Buffy’s view is blocked by a wall of bodies. 

Her eyes still sting from the photonegative of all that brightness burned into her retinas. Her body feels too tight, her skin too small, her heart to heavy. _Is this hell?_

She knows the answer.

His voice is smooth, audible over the thrum of other voices. His guard laugh and laugh, like he’s the funniest thing ever. Or, you know, like they’re getting paid for it. 

And then, suddenly, the laughter turns into outrage and Buffy may not understand the language, but she understands a joke gone too far. The tone is enough. One of the drunks hanging off the peacock’s every word is feeling insulted. 

He snaps something and the peacock makes a joke of it, looks to the other patrons for applause, gets it. Drunk dude gets angrier. The red really doesn’t suit him all that much. 

Buffy quickly downs the last of her beer/ale - bale? – and decides to go find that stable before shit starts happening. 

…

Yeah, no.

“I really fucking hate my life so damn much, it’s not even funny anymore.”

Screw being mute. 

Angry guy just threw his mug, peacock ducked, it came sailing right for Buffy, she jerked away, landed in another drunk dude and promptly got a fist aimed for her face. Caught it, squeezed, kicked the guy’s knees out on reflex and yeah, okay, it’s on.

She ducks another fist, then another mug, a kick, hits back, plants an elbow in some juicy ribs and plucks a plate out of mid-flight to Frisbee it back at the thrower, hits another asshole and has to avoid getting grabbed by a really, really tall redhead. With halitosis. 

Behind the wall of outraged peasants, she can hear the peacock laughing his ass off. 

You just wait, she thinks, heart ache suddenly replaced with the incandescent rage she was trying to not feel earlier, grabs the nearest suicidal idiot and launches him right at the tangle of guards and brightness. He takes them down like pins, most of them going ass over teakettle into the bystanders and then there _are_ no bystanders anymore, because everyone takes offence _now_. 

Buffy ducks and weaves, avoids hitting back as much as she can because it’s not a fair fight and generally just aims for the door and hopes for the best. 

Doesn’t get it. Which brings her back to that karma stick and how she must have been a kitten-murdering serial killer in a past life to land in situations like this. Because the moment she makes the door, a high-pitched scream behind her ruins her escape. 

It’s the female commiseration barmaid, who someone has decided to take advantage of in the middle of the all-out bar fight. Tavern fight? She needs to get her terminology straight. Stat. 

Buffy is not okay with rape. 

At all.

So she sighs, growls and launches herself right back into the mess, fists first. She hits her way over to the corner where some brutish asshole is trying to drag the girl into a backroom, only for her to be beaten there by the peacock, who taps the guy politely on the shoulder before cracking him across the face hard enough to send him down, out for the count. The barmaid slumps, then turns terrified eyes on the rest of the fight and decides, wisely, to scram. 

Leaving Buffy all pumped, back in the middle of the brawl, with nothing to hit and the peacock close enough to blind her. And seriously, what is up with him? Shines like the sun, starts fights for shits and giggles and then helps a mortal girl out of danger for no obvious reason at all. 

Not at all the MO she’s come to expect from his kind.

So weird. Still, Buffy has always been quick on her feet and the lay of the land is this: she can’t go to the Council, because they would weaponize her faster than you can say ‘Slayer’. She can’t go to any of the demons or vampires she knows in the future, because they’re either not born yet, or evil. That leaves her all alone in a big, bad, unfamiliar world and here he is, shining like starlight, so familiar and so warm against her skin. 

The obvious solution is to attach herself to him like a barnacle as he checks on his guards, apparently decides they’re fine and dandy and then makes to slip out through the backdoor, the same as the girl he just saved. 

Buffy sticks to him. Like glue. 

Out the door, through a window, and then toward where a pair of horses are tied up, waiting for their owners. The colors of their tack match the guard, so she has few qualms about hoisting herself up on one of them and following the guy. He doesn’t seem to mind, shoots her a grin and then takes off at a gallop, abandoning his men to their fate. Seriously, he’s making less sense with every passing minute. 

Then Buffy’s not wondering about him anymore, too busy remembering childhood riding lessons to consider what the hell is going on. 

He’s bright. He’s familiar in that unnamable, unspeakable way some things are. She’s following him until he agrees to help her out. 

Or stops. Which happens pretty much as soon as they hit the woods behind the village, barely a ten minute ride away from the angry plebs. 

He dismounts, turns expectant eyes on her and when her feet hit the soft soil, he cocks his head to one side, brushes a bit of food-come-missile from his sleeve and says, “You are a strange one.”

In English. In modern, normal-sounding English. “Oh thank God, you understand me,” she blurts, almost without meaning to. Then, to cover it up, adds, “Who are you?”

She’d throw a ‘the hell’ in there, somewhere, but she’s being polite and stuff. Giles would be so proud. Except, tavern brawl, so maybe not. On the other hand, she’s not the one who started it. For once. 

He lost the ridiculous cap that goes with the peacock outfit at some point, leaving him with longish, dark hair, clever eyes, still shining with exhilaration, and a pretty average face. He’s on the short side, too. She stares until her eyes strain, then looks away.

With a chuckle, he bows dramatically and offers, “Loki, god of mischief, at your service.”

She doesn’t think that’s how he usually introduces himself, but then she pretty much let the cat out of the bag when she blurted about him understanding her, so he knows she’s not exactly your average seventeenth century gal. Still, “No, you’re not.”

“I assure you, I am.”

Really? Really? He’s pretending to be a Norse god? Of mischief? It does explain the fight, but really? _Really_? How does Buffy get in these situations?

“I know an angel when I see one,” she snaps and that might have been a bad idea, because _angel_. Big on the smiting, those guys. 

But Angel Loki just stills for a moment, a little, surprised ‘oh’ escaping him. “I wondered why you wouldn’t look at me. Can you really see it?”

She looks at him, looks away. Blinded, warmed and terrified, as always, by the grace of an angel so close. It’s dimmer than if he was in his natural form, but still enough to burn out mortal eyes. Except Buffy isn’t really a normal mortal anymore, is she? Not with where she’s been. 

She nods, suddenly shy. No, not shy. Not ashamed. Just… lost, as she always is when conversation hits on _that_. Her time away. When she was dead. 

“How? Humans only can when they are angel-touched, and you bear no marks.”

Her gaze automatically flits up to meet his and suddenly, she can. He’s doing something, intentionally tamping down his grace, so she can see him. His eyes are a lovely blue and she misses the feeling of his light on her skin. Misses his grace. Almost wants to ask him to give it back. “I was… I died, once. I was in Heaven.”

For an instant, almost too brief to see, his face shines with naked grief. Then he’s tucked it away behind a bland mask. “How did you come back?”

A shrug. “I was pulled.”

“And why,” he demands, taking a few steps to the left, like he means to circle her. She goes with him, tracks him. No matter how familiar he might feel, no matter how her heart might break, he’s still a stranger in a strange place and he’s already proven that she can’t expect him to act like the angels she remember from Heaven. “Would anyone do that?”

“I’m a slayer,” she offers, and her heart sinks when she sees no recognition on his face. “Warrior of light? She who fights the forces of darkness? Into every generation?”

He shakes his head, frowning. 

“Crap. Now I know why we could never track that demon’s portals. Not time travel. Dimensional travel. I am so screwed.”

Oh, look, an I-sentence. And she didn’t even have to try this time.

“You’re from another dimension?”

“And another time. The twenty-first century is much comfier than this place.” She scratches at the collar of her stolen jacket. It itches. “And cleaner.”

He snorts a laugh. “True. Humans aren’t all that big on hygiene right now. I miss Rome. At least that explains why I’m here.”

“What?” He laughs again, waves a hand. Suddenly, two giant pillows appear out of nowhere and he flings himself onto one of them without a care in the world. Buffy prods the other one with a toe, then sits gingerly down. It’s squishy. The Angel just created squishy floor pillows out of thin air. In the seventeenth century. In an alternate dimension.

How is this her life?

“About a day ago, something happened in this area. A spike of energy, magic, of some sort. I came to investigate.” 

The way he says it – “You mean you came to see if you could cause a mess.”

Because this is an angel, who fancies himself a _trickster_ of all things, and has apparently been down here in the mud since Rome was a thing. 

Laughter. “Ah, you know me so well, already. But as it turns out, you’re what I was looking for. All out of time and place. And something more than human. And you’ve been Above, too. Me thinks chaos is going to follow in your wake with or without me.”

That doesn’t sound promising. 

“Could you send me back?” Angels can do all sorts of things, including time travel. And this one _shines_ to rival the sun. So much power.

He shrugs, not seeming very apologetic. “Sorry, no can do. I haven’t had that kind of juice in a millennium or two. I’d have to recharge and, well, I don’t like seeing the family too much. They’re such a drag.” He pouts. The trickster angel she met in a foreign dimension in a time before hers is pouting. 

“I really, really, really, _really_ hate my life. A lot.”

“Aww,” he coos, pulls some sort of candy out of nowhere and starts chewing on it. It’s loud. And it reminds Buffy that one bowl of watery stew isn’t going to tide her over for long. “Don’t be like that. At least the company is great!”

She snorts. 

This day. Seriously. Battling a demon that keeps escaping at every turn. Sacrificing herself so one of the Minis won’t fall into a portal and end up god knows where. Landing here, so far and long from home. Stealing, lying, hiding. Not sleeping in far too long. Finally finding a place to sleep and some food, only for an angel to show up. And angel. Something she hasn’t laid eyes on in five years. Something she thought she’d never see again, never feel again. All the feelings of loss and grief and old anger, of heartache and bitterness his grace brought up. All the old hurts. And at the same time, the happiness, the joy, the contentment grace always spread. And then the brawl, incited by that very same angel. And now, here she is. 

Buffy has lived through some strange days. Including one where everyone sang and another one where she thought her name was Joan. But this… this one defies description, really. 

“I’m getting too old for this,” she mutters, slumps into her pillow. It smells nicer than anything else in this world. 

“Look plenty young to me,” Loki – she’ll go with that for now – offers.

“Says the immortal angel.”

“To the mortal,” he counters. 

“My kind usually doesn’t make it to eighteen. I’m way past my expiration date.” Some of the sorrow creeps in. She blames it on the exhaustion. 

He studies her, quietly, for a long minute, expression constantly changing. Surprise, pity, wonder, amusement, anger, thoughtfulness.

“I know that feeling,” he finally says, surprisingly honest. It’s the first words he manages to speak without sounding smarmy, or like he’s biting back a giggle. 

Buffy shrugs. “Not like it matters much now. I’m… a long way from that life.” Her life. The life she lives. With the people she loves. In a time and place she knows. 

It hits her like a fist between the eyes then: she’ll die here. Of old age, of monsters or simple murder, but she’ll die here. Even Willow can’t reach through time _and_ space, if she even knows where to reach. She’ll die here and she’ll never see a familiar face again. Hell, she’ll never see a car again, or indoor plumbing, or the Heaven she remembers, the one she expected to go back to at the end. 

At least there’s _a_ Heaven here, even if that idea is less comforting than it would have been a few years ago. Buffy’s learned to live again, these last years, and now that’s gone, too. 

Surprisingly solemn, the angel lets her have her moment, lets her sit there, staring at nothing, feeling the grief roll over her. 

“I am alone,” she finally tells – him, or the trees. The damn universe, maybe. 

I-sentences. Absolutely useless. 

Suddenly, angel boy claps his hands. She jumps out of her skin. 

“Weeeeeell,” he starts, grinning again, brightly. He’s still keeping his grace under wraps, except for his eyes, which glow. 

It’s weirdly comforting. 

“What?”

“The way I see it, you and me, we should join forces.”

“Why?”

“Because I like your style. You’re messy. You don’t belong here and everything you do _ripples_. I may not have started out as a trickster god, but I’ve been one for a damn long time, sweetheart, and belief is a funny thing. Changes even an angel, over time. So the chaos your presence is causing? Is kind of like candy. I like it.”

O-kay. 

_I am weirded out._

“What’s in it for me?”

A shrug, careless and suave. “Someone who understands you and can magic up anything you need. Someone you don’t have to lie to. Company.”

Her expression must not be excited enough, because he adds, “Also, I won’t have to kill you for knowing what I am.”

That one _is_ a pretty good argument. 

“I could fight you.”

“Yep. But unless you’re packing an angel blade under that dress, you can’t kill me. And admit it, you like me.”

The light seeping from his skin, at any rate. But he’s right. She can’t kill him and honestly, she doesn’t really want to. He’s at least a tiny little bit familiar and Buffy knows herself well enough to know she isn’t going to deal with this whole mess well. Maybe if there’s someone around to keep her afloat. Maybe if she’s not alone….

Besides, she’s not exactly drowning in options, is she?

“Buffy,” she says, holds out a hand for him to pull her up.

He flicks out of existence along with his pillow, reappears a split second later right in front of her and hauls her to her feet. 

“Loki,” he counters, and even if it’s not his real name, she figures it’s good enough. 

Then he snaps his fingers and the carriage she saw hours ago pops out of nowhere, along with half a dozen horses and matching, armed guards. None of which seem out of sorts from being angel mojo’d all over the place.

Another click and the door of the carriage opens and stairs unfold themselves. Loki changes his grip on her hand, offering support as she climbs inside.

There’s a full-sized bed, a fireplace and a shelf full of books in that carriage. 

Buffy blinks. 

“I think,” she allows, as he grins, “that I might like your style.”

I-sentences.

She’ll deal with the rest later. 

+


End file.
